- Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna may have misrepresented her religious background.
- She says she was raised by her father as a Messianic Jew, but her relatives deny this.
- Luna also claims to be Hispanic, but registered to vote as a “non-Hispanic white” in 2015.
Florida Republican Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna may have misrepresented her religious background, and only recently began identifying as Hispanic. New report from Washington Post.
Luna was elected to Congress last year to represent Florida’s 13th congressional district in St. Petersburg. said in an interview with Jewish Insider In November, her father raised her as a Messianic Jew (Jews who believe that Jesus is the Messiah).
“I was raised as a Messianic Jew by my father.” Luna saiddefending the fact that she was endorsed by far-right Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who has been accused of making anti-Semitic remarks. was anti-Semitic, why did she support me?”
But according to Three relatives who spoke with PostHer father, George Meyerhofer, was a Catholic, and they were unaware that he practiced Judaism in some way.
Monica Luna, the congressman’s mother, told The Post that George Meyerhofer was “a Christian who embraced the Messiah faith” and that the congressman “buried him in Jewish practices.”
According to immigration records reviewed by The Post, the parliamentarian’s paternal grandfather, Heinrich Mayerhofer, was found to be a Roman Catholic when he immigrated to Canada from Germany in 1954. A soldier in Nazi Germany in his teenage years in the 1940s.
A relative, Joranta Meyerhofer, told the Post that Heinrich Meyerhofer had no choice.
“It was painful for him to talk about it,” she said. “He said, ‘You got the letter, you have to show up or your life is over… He didn’t like it, but it was life.
The congressman, born with the surname “Meyerhofer,” has only in recent years come to openly embrace his Hispanic descent. When she registered to vote in Florida in 2015, she recognized that she was “white and non-Hispanic.” She updated her ethnicity to “Hispanic” when she re-registered to vote in Washington state in 2019.
“I represent my Hispanic heritage and want to have the same last name as my mother,” she wrote. Petition to change surname to Luna she filed in 2019.
Monica Luna told the Post that the congressman “has never identified as Hispanic, as far as I know,” and that Luna’s father used to speak Spanish around her when she was a child. Told.
“Anna can tick both boxes,” she told The Post. “She’s bicultural and biracial. It’s not easy to figure out which box to pick.”
Luna did not respond to the Post’s request for comment. When an insider reached out for comment, Luna’s congressional office said it would release a full response on Friday. series of TweetLuna is disputed Other aspects of reporting on posts.
— Anna Paulina Luna (@VoteAPL) February 10, 2023
On Capitol Hill, Luna was one of the far-right members of the Republican Congress, joining several other members of Congress, initially opposing Kevin McCarthy’s bid for Speaker of the House.
She is also one of the few Republicans. remained friendly The scandal-plagued New York Rep. George Santos also lied, especially about being Jewish.
— Aaron Fritschner (@Fritschner) February 7, 2023